Archive

Quotes

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

—H.L. Mencken, 1921

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

—Magna Carta, 1215

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

—Robert Byrd, 2005

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

—Mao Zedong, 1938